Food For Thought
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: It was all very well facing down danger and all sorts of problems when he was there with her. Right then, though – basically alone on a ship she couldn't even begin to operate – she felt entirely helpless. Rose/Nine


Warning: There's something that would spoil the plot that might possibly bother some people. Please scroll down to the note at the very bottom of the page before reading if this worries you.

Author's Notes: Goes AU sometime prior to The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances.

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><p>A deep groan echoed ominously throughout the TARDIS. Rose tried very hard not to hear it, because she didn't want to admit the reason why the ship was in such pain.<p>

It was broken, because _he _was broken.

Rose found herself alternately avoiding being in the same room with him, and going out of her way to be close to him in case she could catch just a _glimpse _of recognition in his eyes as they slid over her every so often. Neither way of dealing with it had been very successful, but Rose was honestly stumped as to what else she could do at that point.

It was all very well facing down danger and all sorts of problems when he was there with her. Right then, though – basically alone on a ship she couldn't even begin to operate – she felt entirely helpless.

It occurred to her that even though she'd known him for months, she still had no idea what a Time Lord actually needed in order to exist. She didn't know how often he had to eat, and she'd certainly never seen him sleep, though that didn't mean he never did. He didn't seem likely to offer up any hints for her at that particular moment, either. He'd probably just waste away without saying a word, not even having the wherewithal to realise what was happening to him.

As she dumped chopped up banana (one of the few things they had in the fridge that she _knew _he liked) into a bowl of custard, a drop of water splashed onto the bench. Rose angrily swiped at the wet track the tear had traced down her face, taking a moment to fight back the further flood wanted to trickle through in its wake.

When it had initially occurred to her that this might be permanent, she'd spent a few hours in self-pity. She didn't think she could really be blamed for that. How else was she supposed to react, with him just suddenly _gone_ in all of the ways that really mattered? But that clearly did nothing at all to help, so it fell to her to be strong instead. Several days after coming to that conclusion, she wasn't about to let herself break down again. Though _he _probably wouldn't know the difference either way, she certainly would.

Rose returned to the room she'd made into his temporary abode, since she had no idea where his real bedroom was, or if he even had one at all. In a way, the fact that she was only just then realising how little she knew about him at all scared her almost as much as what had happened to him. She'd thought that he'd abruptly _become _just a familiar-looking stranger, but perhaps he'd actually been that way all along.

She tentatively helped him shuffle across the room to sit at the small table in the corner. When the bowl of food was placed in front of him, he stared uncomprehendingly at it, unsure what to do. It broke Rose's heart. He has such a brilliant mind tucked away in there (at least, she hoped it was still there), and yet he couldn't even figure out the most basic connections between things on his own.

Rose demonstrated to him what to do, dipping the spoon into the custard and then bringing it up to her mouth. Before she could offer him the spoon so that he could try for himself, he was already mimicking her with his fingers, fishing out custard-covered bits of banana and popping them into his mouth. Rose gave up on the idea of the spoon when it became quickly clear that he was uninterested in it. He was managing to keep everything but his fingers fairly clean, after all, and she even had some tiny hope that he might be showing some kind of initiative by going about it in a different way. That was definitely more than she could say about anything else he'd done since that alien shot him up with whatever poisonous substance had reduced him to _this_. She'd been lucky to even be able to drag him back to the safety of the TARDIS; he certainly hadn't helped her any.

She watched like a hawk as he dipped his index finger into the custard, this time directing it down to the desktop instead of back into his mouth. He swirled the custard over the surface like finger-paint until it ran out, then dipped his finger once again and went on creating nonsense patterns.

Only they weren't entirely nonsense, Rose realised. Her heart thumped extra hard when she made out the odd circular patterns of what looked like the Gallifreyan writing that was scattered about the place on post-its and books and such, which the TARDIS never translated even when it was working properly. She had no idea what it said (if it actually said anything legible at all), and she doubted that he really knew either, at least consciously. That wasn't the point, though.

Something in his mind seemed to actually _remember_.

She worried that she was imagining the slight expectation in the way he looked up at her when he was finished. In those corners of her mind that she refused to acknowledge, Rose had almost given up on seeing anything like that from him again. He hadn't given any sign of being anything other than a mindless automaton that only looked like the man with whom she'd spent most of the past year.

Yet she had to believe that she saw something of the Doctor there, even if it was only the barest shadow of what he should be. She knew she'd undoubtedly second-guess that a million times over the following days or weeks or even months, but just the possibility that it was real meant Rose could allow herself to really hope, rather than just clinging desperately as she had been to the illusion of hope so that she could lie to herself that things were ever going to be all right again.

She smiled encouragingly at him, and tried not to care that it was purely a mimic when he did the same in return. If she could fix him, he'd be able to smile at her for real every day for the rest of their lives together. She intended to stay with him forever, after all.

Even if he remained like this, Rose didn't think she could ever leave him.

God, she hoped it didn't come to that.

The Doctor's fingers went back to the bowl, but this time they emerged with more than just custard in their grasp. He looked for a moment at the coated slice of banana as if he couldn't remember why it was there, and then almost seemed to shrug as he popped it into his mouth.

Rose forced herself not to be brought down by his lack of focus. All it meant, she promised herself, was that this might take her a little while. She could manage that. For him, she'd wait whole lifetimes if she had to.

She stayed by his side more after that, telling herself that it was slightly easier to bear seeing him that way if she could actually _do _something about it. She thought that he might have seemed a bit livelier than before, but ultimately Rose couldn't help but be disappointed that little, if any, other improvement was notable.

When Rose insisted on testing him and trying to draw some answers out of him that Rose could actually understand, his abilities seemed to be fairly hit-or-miss. A pen and paper, when pressed into his hands, didn't even yield the crudest of scribbles, let alone words. On the other hand, when she passed him cups of water every so often, he seemed to automatically recall what to do with them without her help. He frowned at a whole banana when she handed it to him, but once she'd peeled it, he managed the less complicated task of eating it all by himself. She doubted he could have done even that two days earlier, though it was hard to tell.

He held out the last two inches of that banana purposefully to Rose. Rose reached out in turn and pushed his hand gently back towards his mouth, telling him she wasn't hungry.

She'd never been so happy to have him look at her as though she was a stupid ape who just didn't grasp the obvious. She had no idea _why_ he looked at her that way just then, of course, for he couldn't seem to articulate it. But the expression was just so _him _that it didn't even seem to matter.

That was it. It was all the proof she needed. It wasn't just a product of her mind. He _was _getting better, if very slowly.

She would have flung herself at him in relief, if she'd thought he comprehended enough of his surroundings for that not to panic him like a wild animal suddenly being contained against its will.

Instead, Rose found herself propelled towards the library, her increasing hope bolstering the idea that a bit of research might help her find a way to foster the improvement the Doctor was showing. If there were any books on Time Lord physiology in that massive room, though, it seemed they must have been written in Gallifreyan, precluding her from so much as figuring out the title. She'd clearly have to look elsewhere.

She took a break from the search and brought a bowl of soup with her when she returned to his room. He seemed completely unimpressed by her offering, looking down his large nose at it as if she'd just placed something disgusting in front of him. It could be that he hated soup, or he might not be hungry in general. There was no real way of knowing. Honestly, even putting aside the possibility of finding a cure for him, she'd give anything to find a book entitled 'The Care and Feeding of Time Lords for Dummies'. She'd clearly have to widen her search to less obvious places on the TARDIS if she wanted to find such a thing, though. It was a daunting task, she had to admit, for the possibilities were almost literally endless.

When she next returned to the room a few hours later, still empty-handed, it was to find that the Doctor had disappeared. Rose wanted to smack herself for being stupid enough not to lock or even properly shut the door behind her. The rule about not wandering off should have been drilled into her head well enough, even if she'd never paid any real attention to it. But he'd lured her into a false sense of security by showing no interest in moving, let alone roaming all the way through random (and potentially very dangerous, in his state) sections of the TARDIS.

Rose raced through the countless hallways calling out for him, wishing he'd reply or make _some _kind of discernable noise, but not at all surprised when he didn't. By the time she found him, she was fairly frantic with worry.

She shouldn't have been, though, as it turned out. Apparently, he was just hungry after all. _Very _hungry. And he seemed to have mastered the skill of unpeeling a banana at some point in the past day. There surely couldn't be a single banana in the whole TARDIS left uneaten, if the vast number of peels discarded on the kitchen floor was any indication.

He stood in the middle of all that and looked at her, and seemed to actually properly recognise her. In fact, he seemed much more aware than he had just yesterday. Rose thought of the way he kept improving a little at a time in stop-starts, and she looked around at the mess he'd caused, and she felt totally stupid that she hadn't been able to make the connection earlier.

Though, to be fair, she'd never really heard of bananas saving the day.

Oh, he'd gone on and on about how great bananas were so many times, but even to her, and even when it involved the Doctor, it sounded pretty mad that eating bananas would be enough to help bring him out of _that _kind of state. Still, she didn't really care about the 'why' of it – whether it was because bananas were 'brain food' (or whatever it was the Doctor always tried to tell her to make her eat more of them), or because there was something in the banana that counteracted whatever poison or toxin he'd been exposed to, or whatever else it might be. All she cared about was that he was all right.

She'd find a way to pilot the TARDIS to a banana grove and then force-feed him, if that was what it would take to get her Doctor back. She had no idea how she'd manage that, but she _would _do it.

Luckily, it seemed it might not come to that.

It took him quite some time to work up to it, but eventually the Doctor managed to get out the word, "Rose," in a rasp. He sounded nothing like himself, but that recognition was still more than enough to make Rose disregard her earlier worries about scaring him. She was so excited that she practically tackled him. She pressed grateful kisses to his creased forehead and then rested her head on his shoulder, breathing in the leather smell and pointedly not caring about the evident fact that it had been quite some time since he'd showered.

"Doctor," she replied happily.

"Bananas," the Doctor said slowly.

Rose snorted into his shoulder and said, "Yeah, I hear they're good."

Rose allowed him to pull away from her (though not more than a few inches). In stilted words that didn't quite flow, but which Rose got the gist of nonetheless, the Doctor thanked her and conveyed that he'd be fine on his own now. As if Rose had anywhere else she'd rather be.

"Sorry, you're stuck with me," Rose said. "I'm stayin' right by your side until you're back to normal. Don't get any ideas about runnin' off and tryin' to avoid me this time, either, 'cause I'll just sit on you if I need to; don't think I won't. 'Cause the minute you're properly better, you're gonna tell me all the other weird little bits and pieces that you left out when you told me about Time Lords. I mean, it would've been helpful to know a week ago that bananas have some kind of crazy healin' power for you, yeah? And I think I really should know if you're gonna, I dunno, spontaneously grow another arm or somethin'."

Even though he couldn't quite answer her in words, his oddly guilty look at that last part made Rose gape. "What, you can _grow new body parts _and you weren't even gonna tell me?" she exclaimed. "What, were you just expectin' I wouldn't notice when I woke up one day and you suddenly had a second head?"

The Doctor shrugged somewhat helplessly. It was so strange to see him do _anything _helplessly that Rose backed off, sighing.

"All right," she said. "We can deal with all that later, I guess. C'mon. For now, you're gonna guide me through gettin' us back to London, even if it takes all day. Then I'm gonna buy out the fruit section at Tesco. Maybe at lots of Tesco's. We'll see."

She was actually sort of glad that he couldn't protest very articulately, in that moment. For one thing, she had no intention of letting him change her mind about going (which she knew he'd probably try to do for fear of having to see her Mum, if nothing else). For another, waiting until his faculties connected up properly would give him – or his subconscious, at least – some time to properly reflect on what an idiot he'd been not to tell her whatever he'd been holding back. She had no intention of letting him continue to get away with that.

She resolved that as soon as they got back to London, the TARDIS wasn't budging an inch until the two of them had a proper _talk_.

After the fear he'd somewhat needlessly put her through for nearly two whole weeks just because he refused to tell her anything personal about himself, she thought he sort of deserved the way that talk would probably scare the life out of him.

~FIN~

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><p>Warning: Contains descriptions of a major character suffering from temporary dementia.<p> 


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